128. Editorial Note

On October 5, 1967, the 1967 Career Principals Committee of the American Foreign Service Association forwarded its interim report to Lannon Walker, Chairman of the association’s Board of Directors. The committee’s chairman, Ambassador William Leonhart, also forwarded the report to State Department Executive Secretary Benjamin Read under cover of an October 10 memorandum in which he proposed that Read forward it to Secretary of State Rusk if he thought Rusk would like to see it. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, ORG 1 State) Quoting from one of its working papers, the committee defined its aim in the report as follows:

“The fundamental question to be considered is how the foreign affairs of the United States can best be organized and conducted consistent with NSAM 341 and various other directives related to the pre-eminent authority and responsibility of the Secretary of State… [The Committee] believes that the psychological moment is at hand for a reexamination of the role of the Department of State and the Foreign Service in the over-all ‘foreign affairs community’ and the structure and organization of the career service or services required to carry out that role.”

The report was printed as a supplement to the November 1967 issue of the Foreign Service Journal, pages 30A–30D. In a November 26, 1968, memorandum to Ambassador Robert D. Murphy, Leonhart explained that the report was “prepared when we thought Senator Fulbright was about to launch Congressional hearings to reform—or revise—the Foreign Service and the foreign affairs community.” (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, ORG 8 State)